Whether you’re looking to volunteer in your community, add more organics to your life, or simply live a more climate friendly lifestyle, Kristen Capaccio has got some tips to support your journey.
Organic Week is an opportunity for everyone to get involved and make a difference. It is a week where people can come together to connect over a shared goal of making the world a better place, for today, tomorrow, and the future.
5 ways to get involved within your community.
Organise an event. If you’re a master multi-tasker, this is where you will shine. Here are a few ideas from past events, along with a bit of inspiration for new ones: urban or rural organic farm tour, movie night, plant-based potluck, get a local hero or speaker to share their story, organise a beach clean-up. Get some friends to help and start organising now.
Create awareness in your community. Sometimes all it takes is for one good idea and someone with passion to get the ball rolling.
Talk to the team at your local organic or natural food store. Are they running an event, and can you assist?
Have you heard of WWOOF? See a new part of NZ and volunteer at an organic garden.
Engage with your local library. Ask them to create an organic book display, host a speaker, or simply put up a poster.
Visit your local environmental centre and ask how you can help.
Check out Green Drinks. Each month people who work in the environmental field meet up for informal sessions to share their knowledge and passion. This is a great way to meet people in your area and learn more about local sustainable initiatives.
Write to your local MP. MPs represent you in Parliament and you have a right to contact them to discuss any issues. Share your concern about climate change and ask what their strategy is for supporting your community or specifically what their plan is to lower agricultural emissions. This easy-to-read article will help you get started. Find your local MP here.
Organise a carpool in your area. You may be wondering what this has to do with Organic Week? Living an organic lifestyle includes making eco-friendly decisions not only in the food you eat, but how lightly you tread on this earth. This is just a reminder that small initiatives add up and make a difference. To get you started, here is a link to Carpooling Guidelines, ridesharing tips and 2 ridesharing apps – Link and Zoomy.
7 super simple ways to support Organic Week on your own.
Swap one non-organic food product in your grocery basket, with an organic product. Start with one product a week. If you’re not sure where to start check out our blog on simple steps to going organic.
Support local growers and producers, while reducing food miles. Try to include some locally grown, organic or spray-free produce in your weekly shop. Explore your local farmer’s market or independent stores. Go out of your way to eat seasonal, NZ-made products. Head over to our organic stockist directory to find organic stores, farmer’s markets and food box schemes.
Eat more plant-based food. Did you know it takes less resources to grow plants for human consumption than to feed stock and provide meat for human consumption? Start by committing to 1 day a week to only eat plants. Here is a simple guide to eating plant based.
Stay up to date on what’s happening. Follow the Organic Week Instagram and Facebook pages. Check out the new Organic Week website and sign up for the newsletter here. Share posts, events and newsletters with friends and family.
Share ideas, inspiration, and hope. Get creative and design content (or use ours!) to share in your local networks such as sustainable facebook groups, environment centres, organic stores, farmers markets, gardening groups, etc.
Be a climate-friendly gardener. Start by planting bee-friendly plants in your garden. If you don’t have a green thumb, start small with herbs and greens, eliminating the need to buy herbs in plastic packets. We love this article about gardening in a changing climate. Or here is a beginners’ guide to eco-friendly gardening.
Become Future Fit with this NZ designed interactive program. Get started with a simple 5-minute survey to give you an idea of your impact on the planet. From there you can get climate friendly tips, track and share your progress and see how everyday actions can make a difference.
Organic Week is an opportunity for hope. A chance to talk about the positive changes we can make. A week to empower yourself and feel part of a greater good. This week is about picking just one thing you can do to help. Where will you start?
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-03-21 12:24:282023-03-21 12:24:2811 ways to get involved in Organic Week
Nominations for the 2023 Awards have just opened and run until March 22nd. Categories include the Organic Regenerative Farmer of the Year, Emerging Organic Leader of the Year and Organic Brand of the Year. You can nominate yourself, or somebody else.
Organics is climate action
Farmers and growers around New Zealand are working hard to reduce their carbon footprint. This includes many regenerative farmers who are certified organic. And these growers are also getting a price premium for their produce. So the 2023 Organic NZ Awards are about celebrating these leaders. The Awards are about inspiring more people to realise the holistic benefits of organics.
Organics is an internationally accredited and recognised verification. This means shoppers have a guarantee that their purchases aren’t being greenwashed. We believe customer demand for ethical and sustainable food will only increase. It means New Zealand can embrace this trend with a shift to organic regenerative farming.
About the awards
The Organic NZ Awards are presented by Organic NZ magazine as part of annual Organic Week celebrations. Winners will be announced during Organic Week on May 4th.
Organic Week is an annual celebration, held 1-7 May this year, organised by The Soil & Health Association of New Zealand and Organics Aotearoa New Zealand.
Organic Week is sponsored by Countdown, BiolChim New Zealand, Farmlands, Asure Quality, Kokako Coffee, Chantal Organics, TraNZalpine Honey, Pernergetic New Zealand, Waihi Bush and the Open Polytechnic.
Three peer-reviewed awards will be decided by a group of judges. These categories are: Organic Regenerative Farmer of the Year, Emerging Organic Leader of the Year and Organic Brand of the Year. Five peoples’ choice awards will be decided by public vote. These categories are: Organic Food Product of the Year, Organic Beverage of the Year, Organic Non-Food Product of the Year, Community Garden of the Year and Farmers’ Market of the Year.
Pete Huggins is the General Manager of the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand, and chair of Organic Week 2023
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-03-09 11:12:432023-03-09 11:12:43Organics is climate action
Natural health products are included in the Therapeutic Products Bill which was presented to Parliament at the end of last year. Dr Sandra Clair looks at the reasoning behind it and says that, if executed well, this could be a step in the right direction for pluralistic medicine in New Zealand.
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The Therapeutic Products Bill intends to establish a new regulatory regime for therapeutic products, including plant-based medicines and dietary supplements (Natural Health Product). Submissions closed 15 February 2023. The Health Committee is due to report back to the House of Representatives on 14 June 2023.
Health is the biggest asset we have, an asset that many people wish to actively support. Until now, this has been rather difficult to do using herbal medicines or dietary supplements due to outdated regulatory restrictions that prohibit the description of their therapeutic purpose.
Take the example of cough medicines. You have a debilitating chronic cough, you go into a store and look for a natural product to help you to get rid of this cough. However, no natural product describes this complaint. At best you can only find products labelled with vague descriptions such as ‘relax and soothe a tight chest’.
In contrast, if you were in Australia, Canada, or countries in the European Union (EU), you could select a product that clearly references your condition: ‘Traditionally used in Western herbal medicine to relieve both dry and mild chesty coughs’. If you were in Switzerland, the basic public health insurance would even pay for a natural cough medicine, as such remedies are listed as effective and safe medicines.
History
Traditional plant medicines (TPMs) are therapeutic substances derived from plants that grow naturally in our environment and are used according to long-established medical customs. Over centuries they have been the mainstream medicines on all levels of care, grounded in an impressive body of empirical evidence. For example, seventy-five percent of 119 widely used modern drugs are either compounded directly from medicinal plants or synthesised based on plant structures, and they have the same or similar therapeutic purpose as they originally had in traditional medicine.
Fit for the future?
The Therapeutic Products Bill replaces the Medicines Act 1981 and Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. More than 10 years in the making, it is intended to be a flexible regulatory framework for how therapeutic products are manufactured, prescribed, imported, advertised, supplied and exported, and make the regulation of clinical trials more robust.
Health Minister Andrew Little said it will enable New Zealand to take advantage of advances in medicine, such as cell and tissue therapies, emerging gene therapies, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning software.
“Having risk-proportionate approval systems will improve access to necessary and life-saving medicines, such as vaccines in a pandemic.”
Popularity
Legislation and consumer trends have clearly forked in New Zealand over many decades. The upsurge in organic food consumption is directly linked to an increasing awareness that our bodies function best when they are well nourished and maintained whilst minimally exposed to foreign and toxic chemicals. The same principles apply when it comes to healthcare, where natural medicines are successfully applied as a first line of defense in common and non-life-threatening illnesses.
The World Health Organisation estimates that about 80% of people around the world use traditional therapeutics to care for their health. Notably, the prevalence of their use is also high in countries where access to pharmaceutical medicine is subsidised, chiefly because they are used to prevent health issues from arising in the first place and are seen as safer than drugs to deal with self-limiting or chronic health complaints.
In New Zealand, traditional systems of medicine are used to address primary healthcare needs, as is broadly consistent with the majority of countries around the world. Studies estimate that about 50% of adults and 70% of children use therapies and preparations from sources outside pharmaceutical healthcare, with plant medicines being the most prevalent non-pharmaceutical form of self-medication.
Legislative background
Despite their prevalent use, the current New Zealand legislation does not recognise traditional plant medicines as therapeutic products and does not acknowledge their positive contribution to care.
There have been several attempts over the past decades to address the outdated regulatory framework regarding natural health products (NHPs).
Most notable was the failed pursuit of a joint regulatory authority for medicines and other therapeutic products in partnership with Australia under the joint Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Act and the subsequently proposed stand-alone domestic bill last debated in 2016. The trans-Tasman regulatory system met strong concern from consumers and politicians for being overly restrictive and potentially harmful to New Zealand consumers and the natural health industry. The subsequently proposed New Zealand-only regime (the Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill) acknowledged the low risks of herbal medicines and dietary supplements. It intended to protect consumer choice by providing an appropriate, low-cost access regime to NHPs that are safe, effective, and suitable for use in self-treatment. It enjoyed wide political cross-party, industry, and consumer support, and had passed the second reading in Parliament, despite a minor but vocal opposition. It was a surprise when the incoming Labour government shelved this bill in 2017 due to coalition talks with New Zealand First.
From an international perspective, the current New Zealand legislative framework is out of step. It is a legacy of our colonial past, and does not align with World Health Organisation directives to support and integrate traditional and complementary medicine as a vital part of state-supported or state-funded healthcare to universally cover primary health needs of all residents.
From a domestic perspective, current regulations contravene provisions in the Treaty of Waitangi and also do not adequately support patient choice of healthcare, which is protected under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights Regulations 1996 of the Health and Disability Commissioner Act 1994. This is because the scope and purpose of traditional, non-pharmaceutical medicines cannot be accurately stated due to clauses in the Medicines Act 1981. Although the Dietary Supplement Regulations 1985 (part of the Food Act 1981) provides a framework of a sort for quality requirements, they too disallow therapeutic health claims on NHPs, even when a long-standing empirical knowledge-base or scientific evidence is available. Such restrictions impede appropriate use of these low or non-toxic health products and may even promote the inappropriate use of them through the resulting paucity of appropriate consumer information.
This contrasts with health policies in Australia, Canada and European countries that legally protect the status of traditional medicines. For example, the EU Directive 2004/24/EC grants traditional medicines their own regulatory classification as Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products. Switzerland has gone a step further: since the binding constitutional referendum in 2009, phytotherapy (plant-based medicine) is a treatment option that must be adequately integrated into public healthcare services for its citizens. This constitutional guarantee enables plant medicines to be funded through basic health insurance and secures patient-centred and cost-effective treatment options alongside pharmaceutical drugs and technological interventions.
Rongoā
While all traditional and herbal medicines and dietary supplements such as vitamins and minerals are included under natural health products, it is not clear yet how rongoā, the holistic healing practices based on tikanga and mātauranga Māori, and in particular rākau plant-based remedies, will be treated under TPB and its regulations.
Rongoā Māori is a Te Tiriti-protected taonga, however, there is no explicit reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi protection clauses in the released draft. At the first reading in Parliament the Minister of Health Hon Andrew Little noted that he has since commissioned a workstream to consider how the ‘regulatory settings support the traditional practice of rongoā while balancing this objective against the need to provide assurances for patient safety and export market access for rongoā practitioners’.
It will be essential that Māori have input in line with the intent of the Crown-Māori partnership model.
Therapeutic Products Bill
The Therapeutic Products Bill (TPB) intends to establish a new regulatory regime that includes plant-based medicines and dietary supplements under the category of natural health products (NHPs). It repeals all secondary legislation made under the Medicines Act 1981 and revokes the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985, with the aim to provide comprehensive, risk-proportionate regulation of the various categories of therapeutic products and technologies.
While the current Medicines Act is administered under Medsafe, the TPB proposes to establish a new Therapeutic Products Regulator that would be responsible for ensuring the safety, quality, and efficacy of regulated products, including natural health products, across their lifecycle. The TPB acknowledges the generally lower-risk of NHPs, which are therefore intended to be evaluated against different standards than those for higher-risk pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices.
It is positive that the TPB recognises plant-based medicines and dietary supplements as therapeutic products as this will allow informed consumer choice, e.g. a herbal remedy for cough will be able to say so.
The TPB also recognises that herbal medicines and dietary supplements are generally low risk. Based on this, it aims to enable a cost-effective regime that gives New Zealanders confidence that their trusted natural health products will remain available, are true to label, and provide the health benefits claimed for them.
If the TPB is passed by Parliament, it will potentially take another 1-2 years to develop the detailed regulations required to complete the regulatory scheme before it comes into force, with a backstop date of 1 September 2026. If done well, TPB could pave the way for a pluralistic healthcare system that – in the words of WHO – finally emphasises people’s rights to quality health services that are available, accessible, affordable, and culturally acceptable.
TPB detail
There is still a significant amount of detail that needs to be determined in secondary legislation to be made under the TPB. It will be imperative that these regulations reflect a regime that is appropriate, feasible, practical, and affordable for NHPs. Dr Clair points out some areas that need clarification and resolution to ensure the objectives of the Bill:
The list of approved ingredients is as wide as possible.
In the absence of negative safety reports evidence, a natural health product should be grand-fathered into the system by granting market authorisation if it has been in the New Zealand market for a minimum of 10 years. This ‘well-established use’ principle is a recognised regulatory principle.
Traditional plant medicines are distinct in their healing purpose and long-standing evidence base from modern dietary supplements which were developed in the 20th century to address nutritional deficiencies. Therefore, they require separate considerations. The right to formally access and use them needs to be adequately protected.
A definition is needed for ‘Traditional Medicine’ and ‘Traditional Practice’. This should include Rongoā Māori and all WHO-recognised medical traditions.
The TPB permits health benefit claims with scientific evidence or traditional use. It should also permit those health benefit claims trusted by overseas regulators (e.g. Australia, Canada, EU, UK, Switzerland). Such regulators permit reference to therapeutic uses recorded in authoritative clinical textbooks and monographs as this professional body of literature is the most comprehensive and clinically relevant repository of traditional and empirical evidence. In oral traditions, e.g. Rongoā Māori, recognized traditional experts embody this medical knowledge, and this should be admissible as evidence of traditional use.
The regulations should allow flexibility in description of conditions. For NHPs, the naming of conditions should not be solely based on the International Classification of Diseases (the ICD) but also by their equivalent in traditional or lay terms, so that they can be related back to traditional evidence and be generally understood by members of the public.
Practitioner-only category : professionally trained Medical Herbalists and Naturopaths need to be able to maintain access to stronger acting practitioner-only products (not sold over-the-counter). In addition, Schedule 1 of the current Medicines Regulations prevents medical practitioners from legally accessing several traditionally used plant species because they are regulated as pharmaceutical substances in conjunction with their synthetic isolates, regardless of their distinctly different risk profiles and applications. In other jurisdictions, e.g. the UK, such plant species and their whole-plant extracts are available to suitably trained natural health practitioners. Dietary supplements will need to be allowed to contain adequate therapeutic levels of active constituents.
Many of the ingredients listed under the previous Permitted Substance List (PSL) for natural health products are in fact synthetics. Other jurisdictions, e.g. Switzerland, request the identification of a substance to the public as either natural or synthetic due to their different characteristics, i.e. relating to risk and bioavailability, and consumer preferences. Labelling of New Zealand NHPs should be similarly transparent.
It is essential that the yet to be appointed advisory committee and proposed dedicated authority is filled with formally engaged subject matter experts on all aspects of traditional and nutritional medicine, namely its products, practices, and professions, and that the administration of these products is separate from pharmaceutical medicines and medical devices.
The cost recovery framework needs to ensure that compliance costs are fair and equitable for the low-risk NHPs regulated under this Bill so that they remain affordable given that they are presently non-subsidised but used as primary healthcare remedies.
Have your say
Closing date for submissions on the proposed Therapeutics Products Bill has been extended to 5 March 2023. Go to the New Zealand Parliament website for an online submission form to make your opinion count.
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Barnes J, McLachlan AJ, Sherwin CMT, Enioutina EY. Herbal medicines: Challenges in the modern world. Part 1. Australia and New Zealand. Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2016;9(7):905-915.
Chrystal K, Allan S, Forgeson G, Isaacs R. The use of complementary/alternative medicine by cancer patients in a New Zealand regional cancer treatment centre. The New Zealand Medical Journal (Online). 2003;116(1168).
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Medsafe. Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency (ANZTPA). 2012.
Ellena KR. The uncritical enthusiasts versus the uninformed sceptics: Regulation of complementary and alternative medicines. J Law Med. 2005;13(1):106-124.
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Legislation Direct. Ko Aotearoa tēnei: A report into claims concerning New Zealand law and policy affecting Māori culture and identity. Te taumata tuatahi (Waitangi Tribunal report). Wellington, New Zealand2011.
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The Medicines (Retail Sale or Supply of Herbal Remedies) Order 1977, (1970).
About the author
Dr Sandra Clair (PhD Health Sciences) established the multiple award-winning plant medicine business, Artemis. Using her skills in health sciences and Swiss medical herbalism, underpinned by academic research into a rare Renaissance medical textbook, Dr Clair formulated plant medicines for her clients, then after 1998 sold these directly to health stores, pharmacies, and practitioners and eventually exporting.
Soil & Health NZ life member Philippa Jamieson, reviewed the 288 pages of the Therapeutic Products Bill
The bill seeks to regulate the manufacture, sale, importing, exporting, prescribing, dispensing, and other activities involving therapeutic products. It covers three classes of products:
medicines – e.g. pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, gene therapies, cell and tissue therapies, and ‘biologics’ (such as donated blood, tissue, organs, microorganisms),
medical devices – anything from bandages to pacemakers, dental crowns, surgical mesh, software used therapeutically, robotic surgery machines,
natural health products (NHPs) – e.g. vitamin and mineral supplements, herbal remedies, tinctures, homeopathics, probiotics.
Many people are concerned that the bill – and the accompanying regulations that are yet to be written – could result in fewer and costlier natural health products. Smaller businesses could struggle with the time and expense of compliance.
“[The bill] gives a blank cheque to a regulator to tell us what herbs and supplements we can use and in what quantity [or dose],” says food safety and natural medicine advocate Dr Guy Hatchard. “They are also allowed to tell us what herbs we can’t use.”
Rongoā Māori are not mentioned in the bill, but the regulator must ‘give effect to the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi and take account of mātauranga Māori and Māori perspectives’.
The bill gives wide decision-making powers to whoever is appointed regulator, with no guarantee that person will have expertise in natural health, traditional medicines and different cultural approaches, or consult with appropriate people who do. It’s more likely a Western medical and pharmaceutical framework will dominate.
In 2017 Medsafe drafted a list of over 7000 NHPs to be permitted substances (which may be adopted and adapted for the new regulations) that included many synthetic substances such as additives with known health risks.
It’s not only about natural health products. Some are concerned the bill could allow increased use of biotechnology, such as gene therapies. Regulation is needed, but can it keep up with this rapidly changing field?
Another question is around liability: currently the Crown can’t be held criminally liable for breaches of the current Medicines Act – should this be changed in the new bill, as the Crown is a large user of therapeutic products in our health system?
Also, the bill would continue to allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines. What do you think about this?
The scope of the bill is wide and there is much to consider. The regulations have to be workable for small businesses and practitioners such as naturopaths, and allow for safe, effective, affordable, culturally appropriate healthcare products and a range of choices.
“We can’t sell laxative teas, or at least can’t say a tea has that effect,” an organic shop staff member said recently. “How does that help people who could really benefit from it?”
Health benefit claims are just part of the Therapeutic Products Bill currently before parliament. The bill would allow the makers of those herbal teas to claim laxative effects on the label – if they gain approval of the product, approval of the therapeutic claim, and pay whatever fees are set.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2023-02-22 10:49:072023-02-22 10:49:07The Therapeutic Products Bill: A step forward for natural health products?
The tourism dollar is coming back, but at what cost? Claire Brunette investigates how New Zealand can, and does, balance the effect on the environment while still reaping the rewards in our economy.
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With vertiginous snowy peaks, pōhutukawa-fringed beaches and geothermal areas it’s not hard to see why Aotearoa New Zealand attracts tourists.
In the year ending March 2020, tourism was our largest export industry, representing $16.4 billion, or 5.5 percent of GDP. Though still only half of pre-pandemic levels, since the border reopened in July 2022, international visitors have been returning in rapid numbers with international arrivals reaching 172,269 in August 2022. With this new bloom of travellers comes a significant environmental impact. A 2018 study estimated that tourism is responsible for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Construction, energy use, transport, souvenirs, food consumption and waste all impact the local area and global climate.
It’s not all bad news. Done well, tourism can benefit local communities and their economy, raise awareness and funds for wildlife, increase happiness and well-being and create a rich understanding of other cultures.
So how do we find the balance? How can we benefit from the positive aspects of tourism while minimising the detrimental ones?
The answer might lie in ecotourism. Sustainable tourism or ecotourism is defined by the International Ecotourism Society as ‘responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education’. They define ecotourism principles to be followed.
Bridge to Nowhere, WanganuHooker Valley Track, Aoraki Mt Cook National ParkDolphins at KaikouraMilford Sound
The International Ecotourism Society’s list of ecotourism principles
Minimise physical, social, behavioural, and psychological impacts.
Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect.
Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts.
Provide direct financial benefits for conservation.
Generate financial benefits for both local people and private industry.
Deliver memorable interpretative experiences to visitors that help raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climates.
Design, construct and operate low-impact facilities.
Recognise the rights and spiritual beliefs of the indigenous people in your community and work in partnership with them to create empowerment.
Treading lightly
About half of the emissions produced by tourism are from transportation. If you are helicoptering into your eco-lodge, are you really engaging in sustainable tourism?
New Zealand’s scale and diversity make it a paradise for getting around using your own, eco-friendly, muscle. Walking, cycling trails and kayaking spots run the whole length of the country and are a great choice for low- emission transport. One such jewel is the Mountain to Sea cycle trail which takes riders from the stark magnificence of Tongariro National Park, along the culturally and historically significant Whanganui River to the wild west coast.
Te Araroa, the walking path that runs from Cape Reinga to Bluff, is growing in popularity. Executive director of the trail, Matt Claridge, anticipates, “over 3000 walkers on Te Araroa this season, nearly double previous numbers”. They’ve seen that the success of the trail is already having an economic impact on small towns along the trail. There’s something very pleasing about being able to walk the length of New Zealand and if you don’t have the time to put aside for the whole thing at once you can complete small sections over time.
Showcasing the sea
Aotearoa is blessed not only with breathtaking scenery, but unique geographic features that enable us to interact with marine wildlife.
The Hikurangi Trench rises to its southern end just off the coast of Kaikoura, creating a feeding ground for the spectacular parāoa sperm whale, amongst others.
Whale Watch Kaikoura is 100% owned by the local tangata whenua. The business has been a driving force in the local community’s development into an ecotourism destination. Their boats have propulsion systems that reduce the underwater noise level (an important precaution as whales are sensitive to sound). In keeping with ecotourism values, they give back to the local community through sponsorship and contribute data and financial support to scientific research on marine mammals in the local area.
Milne Bay, TaupoGreat Taste Trail, Nelson
In New Zealand, whale-watching and dolphin-swimming operators must secure a permit from the Department of Conservation (DOC). They must prove that their business is in the interest of ‘conservation, management and the protection of marine mammals’. This limits the number of operators in the area and ensures that the animal’s natural behaviour remains unchanged. And interaction with humans does have an effect on animals. In 2021 DOC implemented extra measures to protect local bottle-nosed dolphins in the Bay of Islands as identifiable dolphins declined from 278 in 1999 to just 26. The dolphins were spending too much time interacting with the boats, leaving them with limited time to eat, rest and care for their babies. When you are selecting a company to observe or interact with our marine mammals, ensure they have certification.
Founded in 1954, family-owned RealNZ employs more than 500 people and opens up the south of the South with a range of cruises, ferries, tours, and ski resorts and include activities such as jet boating, scenic flights and a coal- powered steamship. To reduce their CO2 footprint they are founding members of Hydrogen New Zealand (promoting hydrogen technology), are investigating battery and fuel cell technology for both their road and marine fleet and have already established a number of electric charging stations and renewable energy systems. They say their biggest impediment to reducing their carbon footprint is the historic steamship, TSS Earnshaw, which uses one tonne of coal every hour.
Involved in conservation from the beginning with the Save Manapouri Campaign in the 60s, RealNZ have a dedicated conservation and sustainability team who oversee a number of restoration, pest-eradication, research and education projects throughout Fiordland.
As co-founder Les Hutchins said in 1998, “Tourism and conservation need each other for mutual survival”.
Actively auditing their procurement and waste, RealNZ prioritise buying local, promote product stewardship, and recycle or reuse wherever possible. Amongst many other awards and recognitions, RealNZ holds Qualmark Enviro Gold status.
Sustainability Certifications
Tiaki – Care for New Zealand
A collaborative effort between seven groups, including Tourism New Zealand, Air New Zealand and DOC. Tiaki encourages domestic and international visitors to care for New Zealand while travelling.
Qualmark New Zealand
Qualmark is New Zealand tourism’s official quality assurance organisation. Tourism operators displaying a Qualmark award provides assurance of a sustainable quality experience. An independent evaluation assesses an operator’s commitment to the environment, people and safety.
New Zealand Tourism Sustainability Commitment
Developed by Tourism Industry Aotearoa with the aim to see every New Zealand tourism business committed to sustainability by 2025. They have a Carbon Challenge to track carbon use so businesses can show their progress.
Balancing the budget
Marine social scientist Jessica Giannoumis says on her podcast, Jess explores, that ecotourism is often “painted as a prestigious thing that only people with a lot of money could afford.” Giannoumis thinks this is an odd way of looking at eco-tourism and believes you can have eco-tourism everywhere. She recommends that you “look out for local tourism providers who can show you a different way of experiencing the area you live in.”
Fortunately, there are very affordable options available all over New Zealand.
DOC oversees our thirteen national parks in addition to other conservation areas and many reserves. They run a number of huts and campsites that offer accommodation with very low climate impact (composting toilets!) and are located in both accessible and isolated spots throughout the country.
Set in Northland, the privately run, family-friendly Russel-Orongo Bay Holiday Park is one place to consider if you have young children as it offers classic holiday park fun while offering the chance to get up close to weka, pāteke and the brown kiwi. They have long been dedicated to conservation and sustainability practices, and as part of their eco-statement, they say that “We also want to provide our guests with the mātauranga (knowledge) they need to continue their own journey in kaitiakitanga and conservation”.
In 1975, Fred Dagg famously sang ‘We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are’. Hopefully, we are starting to understand. Making choices that protect what we have and repair what we’ve lost might be the best way to give back to the land we live in.
Claire Brunette is a writer, keen camper, owner of a potted organic garden and increasingly desperate advocate for sustainability living in Tāmaki Makaurau.
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/plane-iStock-956293834-1500.jpg10031500Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-12-21 12:54:072024-08-16 22:22:14Tourism doesn’t have to cost the earth
Ahead of the government passing the Organic Products Bill, the Soil & Health Association’s former general manager Pete Huggins talks dirt and water with horticulturists.
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When this magazine was launched in 1942 it was called Compost Club Magazine. Many are attached to the name – and for good reason. Regenerating soils with organic matter and protecting their fertility for future generations remains a core value for many of you, as well as for us, and for the publisher of Organic NZ – the Soil & Health Association.
Today, the importance of soils is headline news – for food security, for biodiversity and for carbon sequestration.
Soil fertility is a core value of organics and this commitment is shared with the wider concept of regenerative agriculture, which organics is part of.
But some would have it a different way, and want to see organics embrace other growing mediums including hydroponics. And in the USA, a long-running court case is being fought over the inclusion of hydroponics under the umbrella of organics.
What’s the deal with hydroponics?
Hydroponic systems don’t use soil at all. Instead, they use a solution of nutrients to grow crops like lettuces or berry fruit. This can be good for water conservation, and can be energy efficient, but undoubtedly there’s no soil involved, so you can’t improve its fertility.
But among those calling for a rethink is retired New Zealand academic Dr Mike Nichols. Mike is an Honorary Member of the International Society for Horticultural Science, and in 2015 was presented with a lifetime achievement award by Vegetables New Zealand. He was one of the first to grow strawberries and blueberries hydroponically in New Zealand. Mike says organics needs to evolve, especially in light of climate change.
“Hydroponics did not exist when organics was founded. Decisions were made that because hydroponics used only inorganic fertilisers it should be excluded. But organic hydroponics systems using organically derived nutrients overcome this objection.”
Defining organics matters
Later this year, the New Zealand government is expected to pass the Organic Products Bill. This bill will establish a government-backed organic standard. For the first time, we’ll have a legal framework around the term organic in Aotearoa.
This is really important, for a number of reasons. Firstly, our international trade partners are getting serious about organics and we need to keep up. The EU plans to have a quarter of their agricultural land area using certified-organic production methods by 2030 (in case you wondered, European crops that are grown hydroponically cannot be labelled as organic). Japan recently threatened to raise trade barriers against New Zealand in response to glyphosate residues in our honey exports. Even the US government is subsidising farm conversions to organics.
Our export dollars aren’t the only reason we need a strong legal standard for organics. More important is the issue of trust. Organics is about trust in where your food comes from. Organic consumers will tell you they want their food grown in a way that protects nature. They want pesticide-free, GE-free, high animal welfare standards, good employment conditions, and action on climate change. Without a rigorous standard, you can’t trust your food. If we get this wrong in New Zealand, we will lose that trust. And then all the trade deals in the world can’t save us. Certified-organic food in New Zealand is reliable, but at the moment there’s nothing stopping someone using the name falsely. That’s why it is so important to check for a certification label on what you buy.
Unfortunately, experience from the US shows us that legislating for the word “organic” can still go seriously wrong. The relevant US law is the Organic Foods Production Act, which contains a clause that organic production “shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility”. However, in 2019 the US government refused to crack down on organic certifiers who were approving the use of hydroponic systems. This is now the subject of expensive court appeals in the US.
Dr Nichols thinks the US organic regulations are much more realistic for the twenty-first century by allowing hydroponics. He is worried the New Zealand standard might exclude hydroponics, thus making soil-based organics uncompetitive.
This worry is shared in a different way by the Real Organic Project, a US group established to reassert soil-based organic values in America. They say that real organic farmers in the US are struggling to compete in a dishonest marketplace. They believe that the inclusion of hydroponics is driven by the large industrial players, saying: “Big Ag ultimately won, allowing the . . . hydroponic industries to bend the rules for their own benefit.”
Bringing it back to soil
Soil-based agriculture is also a central value behind regenerative agriculture (regen ag) which has attracted serious attention in recent years. But Dr Nichols makes the point that regenerative agriculture by itself isn’t enough to deliver healthy food: “The concept of regenerative agriculture is good, if it means reducing the use of agricultural chemicals and of cultivation. But if it means not supplying minerals, which may not be present in the soil, and ‘hoping’ that the bed rock (or the soil) will supply them, then it is away with the fairies. Nitrogen is the only element that can be imported into the soil naturally.” The addition of organic fertiliser (certified-organic inputs for organic farming) are the answer to this constraint in any farm system, whether hydroponic or not.
None of the current organic certifiers in New Zealand allow hydroponics and have no plans to do so. BioGro chief executive Donald Nordeng was unequivocal, saying, “There is no such thing as organic hydroponics, so we don’t certify any.”
This stands us in good stead when it comes to our own legislation. Organic leaders in Aotearoa are focused on healthy soil and nature-based food systems. Hua Parakore, the indigenous verification and validation system created by Te Waka Kai Ora, the national Māori organics authority, is similarly soil-based.
So it seems unlikely that hydroponics can fit under the umbrella of organics in Aotearoa. The Ministry of Primary Industries is currently working with sector leaders to reach agreement around the organic standard. Ultimately, it is ministers that will decide. MPI told Organic NZ that they are listening to what the sector says on a range of topics, including what should be in or out of the scope of the standard. MPI will be writing up the proposals that have come out (including where the sector has agreed to disagree). The debate will continue well into next year.
Marco’s sister Marije harvesting organic blueberries. The de Groots have been growing blueberries in Cambridge since the mid-1980s.
An organic grower’s perspective
Marco de Groot is the general manager of Monavale Blueberries in Cambridge, which has been BioGro-certified since 1993. Here’s his perspective on hydroponics.
Ideally, organic growers need to choose a location best suited for growing a particular crop, which includes soil type and climate. Emphasis should be on feeding soil biology, which in turns break down organic matter into nutrients; creating humus rich in microbiological activity; and maintaining a diverse sward, which aids in providing nutrients and as habitat for beneficial insects. If this is carried out successfully over a period of years, then this system produces an improved biological cycle and provides more resilience to adverse effects such a droughts, pests and diseases. The ultimate goal is to achieve a high-brix environment and to create the best-tasting product that is high in nutrition and antioxidants, with a longer shelf life.
Hydroponics and non-soil substrate fertigation systems rely on synthetically derived inputs and non-organic mediums, which are often imported from overseas, and for the reasons explained above do not align themselves with “traditional” and industry-accepted organic management practices. These systems tend to be used by conventional growers with unsuitable soil and challenging climatic conditions. It has a direct economic advantage to the grower as crops often are produced within a year rather than several years in the case of blueberries grown conventionally or organically in soil-field conditions.
Both hydroponic and non-soil substrate fertigation systems force feed plants to create fast growing large plants, and fruit, require relatively high-energy inputs systems, and often lack a fully balanced nutritional complement.
These systems do have a part to play in food security but these are systems are not organic!
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/10/iStock-496686374.jpg14142121Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-10-22 12:48:582022-10-22 12:48:58Hydroponics: can it count as organic?
Capitalism is hurting the planet and people, yet we all play a part in driving consumerism. Ger Tew from upcycling collective The ReCreators talks about learning to tread lightly.
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We live in a hyper-capitalist society that has left us decades behind in seeing effective action in the name of climate responsibility. Consumerism leaves people yearning for “more” in a way that never seems to leave one satisfied for long. With busier work lives than ever, an outrageous cost of living and never-ending new technology, it often feels as though we are rats running faster and faster around a wheel that is about to fall off. Our current measure of success through the monetary lens of GDP, does not measure quality of life or connection to our community and environment.
Is it time to look at degrowth?
Degrowth looks to critique the current model of capitalism and address the fact that GDP growth on a planet with finite resources is economically inept. It will enable our society to relearn the old ways of living in balance with Papatūānuku – never extracting more resources than our environment can manage and not polluting more than ecological boundaries can reasonably allow. Degrowth is a way of life that continues to be practised by many indigenous communities around the world.
The world’s richest 10 per cent have been responsible for more than half our planet’s total carbon emissions since 1990. The richest 1 per cent emit more than double the carbon emissions of the poorest 50 per cent, proving the need for a climate-justice model that redistributes the wealth of the most affluent, who do the most damage. This redistribution of wealth could be enacted through a new tax model that sees those at the top of the financial food chain pay higher taxes (a reasonable request seeing as they hardly pay enough now).
Embracing a life with less
Twenty years ago, I was compelled to change my lifestyle for the good of the environment. While the concept of degrowth was far from my mind, I knew I had to change the way I lived my day-to-day life. I noticed the passionate environmentalists around me were focussing on various areas, such as reducing carbon-emitting transport via cycling, changing their eating habits by adopting a plant-based diet, or making significant reductions in general consumption.
My first two big changes were converting to vegetarianism and quitting the corporate world for a job in the public sector. Giving up meat was relatively easy – most restaurants at the time offered at least one vege option and I learnt to just take it. Incorporating a wider range of herbs and spices into cooking made meals more flavoursome without the meat and made me more excited about cooking sustainably. Quitting my corporate job meant I took a reasonable pay cut but I easily adjusted to living with less – I now understand that an increase in salary is a direct correlation to an increase in consumption which eventuates to a rise in landfill.
I would advise people to pick one habit to change – sticking with it until it’s routine before moving onto the next one, as I’ve found this to be the most effective way of making big lifestyle changes.
Aiming for a two-tonne lifestyle
According to Oxfam, the average New Zealander has a carbon footprint of approximately 9.3 tCO2-e per year, 13 times that of the global poorest, which is 0.69 tCO2 per year. The average person from the Pacific has a carbon footprint of 2.2 tCO2 per year – again far lower than the average rate for Kiwis. Ideally, we would not exceed 2 tCO2 per year in order to live a sustainable lifestyle that Earth can reasonably support.
If you are interested in learning where you sit on the spectrum, there are a bunch of carbon calculators that you can use to figure out where you and your whānau sit. Auckland Council’s Live Lightly team has produced a Future Fit calculator (futurefit.nz), which measures how you move, eat, use power, shop and grow.
Ways we have reduced our lifestyle
Growing kai and composting
Gardening is a fantastic hobby, great for fitness and exposing yourself to microbes that are good for your well-being. With the right skills you can find yourself saving money, and with the skyrocketing cost of living, it is a smart skill to master. If you don’t have room for a garden in your home, there is likely to be a local community garden you can get involved with.
Eating a more plant-based diet
Our whānau eat a primarily plant-based diet, I avoid meat and dairy and we get eggs from our chooks at home. My hubby likes a bit of meat, as do a couple of my kids, which is fine in moderation. I have mastered cooking and baking skills to maximize the flavour of nutritious plant-based food, much of which we grow ourselves!
No new stuff
I used to be an avid op-shopper. However, I’m now pushing myself to fully embrace degrowth by purging our house of things we don’t need. I’ve found it quite liberating to reduce the amount of stuff we own. Doing this has definitely kept more money in my pocket and given me more time to focus on indulging in my hobbies.
Travel
This is probably the hardest area for me to cut back personally, as I’m originally from Ireland and have needed to travel home from time to time. I’ve found this is where the tonnes can really add up. Covid has changed travel in general and I will definitely be scrutinising my long-haul flights to keep them to a minimum.
If I lived in the city I would invest in an e-bike, but as a rural dweller this is currently an impractical option. My kids are able to cycle to school but beyond that we need a vehicle to get around. Our whānau invested in a small electric car, meaning we barely use our petrol car anymore, and the advent of Covid saw our travel reduced by about 50 percent.
Travel is a hard area to cut down on but it’s good to try cycling when you can and using public transport where possible. When it comes to vehicles, be mindful of the size of the engine relative to required use, ie not having a massive car.
Degrowth on a global scale
The concept of GDP as a measure of progress needs to be replaced with a “genuine progress indicator” (GPI) that measures health, education, housing, well-being, equity and happiness. We need to see a global economic shift in line with Kate Raworth’s doughnut economics where our economy is balanced with natural ecosystems, and taxation and shareholding systems are made far more equitable.
Here are some steps we can take to enable degrowth:
End planned obsolescence by changing legislation and designing products to last as long as possible.
Reduce advertising and stop inciting anxiety and creating problems to sell your product as a “solution”.
Shift from “ownership” to “usership” with the creation of makerspaces and shared platforms.
Create “product as a service” business models.
End food waste by producing compost and mitigating waste from the growing stage of plant production.
Scale down ecologically destructive industries including fossil fuels and land-intensive food production like beef farming.
DIY upcycling
In 2018, I set up the ReCreators, a collective that delivers DIY upcycling classes across the Auckland region. My skills have grown immensely through this collective, and in the last four years I’ve learnt how to use woodworking tools, tech for design and laser cutting, and an array of other crafts.
With my kids also attending these classes, our home is somewhat riddled with creations so I have not totally decluttered. It has instilled in me a desire to not bring in any more materials, meaning I am truly embracing a lifestyle where I have gone from upcycling to reusing to reducing and now actively avoiding.
In a world where products and materials were designed to last, businesses would sell less, consumers would buy less, we would all work less and, if we distributed global income equitably, we could live a reasonable life.
Restraint
This is not a super unfamiliar idea as it’s how humans used to live for centuries. It is clear that degrowth must start with active changes in our behaviour and we must practice restraint when offered something new and shiny. Think past the object and towards being satisfied with who and what you are.
Bonnie Flaws is a journalist who lives in Napier.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-10-20 11:26:582022-10-20 11:26:58Degrowth: is it time to live with less?
Last year the Environmental Protection Authority called for information on the popular weed killer glyphosate, but are they dithering to avoid a risk assessment? Bonnie Flaws investigates.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently reviewing information provided by the public on the herbicide glyphosate after issuing a call for information last year, which could lead to reassessment, including a full risk assessment.
The controversial weed killer glyphosate, a broad-spectrum herbicide in the organophosphate class, is the most widely used weedkiller in the world, and certainly in New Zealand. It has been used here since the 1970s. It is the active ingredient in formulations referred to as GBHs (glyphosate-based herbicides), of which there are 89 approved mixtures in New Zealand, including the ubiquitous Roundup.
Despite a 2018 class-action lawsuit in the United States that awarded US$289 million to a groundskeeper who developed terminal cancer from using Roundup, in New Zealand the EPA still classifies glyphosate as a “low-toxicity herbicide”.
EPA General Manager Chris Hill said the call for information had been initiated to get a better understanding of how GBHs are used in New Zealand, “with a view to making a decision about whether a reassessment is necessary, and if so, to pursue grounds for reassessment”.
Many responders were professional users who said it was safe and highly beneficial if used properly. About 60 per cent of responders were non-users who said it was a toxic poison that should be banned or restricted.
No decision has yet been made, but it appears the EPA is waiting to see whether the European Chemicals Agency and the European Food Safety Authority decide to go ahead with a reassessment – a decision that was recently deferred until next year. “The information we have received from our call for information better prepares us to assess the European findings and consider further actions for New Zealand,” Hill says.
“There is no scientist in New Zealand that is paid to research pesticides and pesticide risk.”
JODIE BRUNING
What we do know and what we don’t
The use of GBHs has broadened significantly since their initial introduction as weedkillers for agricultural crops. They are now widely used by councils on roadsides where our children walk to school and can run into drains, to kill weeds in waterways, and as a pre-harvest desiccant to dry out crops under threat from ill-timed rain, sociologist Jodie Bruning points out.
This last use gives farmers more control over when they can harvest, and essentially sees cereals and pulses doused with the chemical just ahead of harvest, leaving higher residues on crops. It is difficult to get information about how common this practice is in New Zealand.
Similarly, we don’t know how much glyphosate is applied in New Zealand every year, as we stopped reporting this to the Food and Agriculture Organisation back in 2009, Bruning tells me. However, a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US found that more than 80 per cent of urine samples drawn from children and adults in a study contained glyphosate.
Environmental and health impacts
Legal discovery in court cases brought against Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, in the US have brought some stark realities to light about glyphosate toxicity, Bruning says.
In particular, it’s now known that GBH residues on the skin absorb in and pool under the dermal layer, which is how farmers have long-term exposure. “The EPA says if you are fully protected you’ll be safe. They have not communicated risk to farmers on glyphosate. You still see farmers out there in jandals, and roadside sprayers where kids are walking home from school,” says Bruning.
Then there is the risk to the soil web. A recent report from the UK Soil Association found that evidence of glyphosate’s impact on the soil and soil life was inconclusive: “Research indicates potential impacts in increasing crop diseases, changing the composition and functioning of soil microorganism species and ecosystems, and recently published studies are showing a negative impact on earthworms. Scientists working in this field are calling for future research to be carried out. This is urgent given the widespread and heavy use of glyphosate worldwide.”
But as Professor Jack Heinemann, a geneticist at the University of Canterbury points out, glyphosate is a biocide, and kills more than just plants. It also kills microbiota.
Heinemann’s work shows that herbicides, including GBHs, cause bacteria to become resistant to clinical antibiotics. This literature is not being considered by regulatory agencies, including the EPA.
Risk assessment (which for glyphosate has not been done) tends to look at a chemical’s direct toxicity to humans or animals, or pollinators like bees. Regulators have not thought about how herbicides change microbiota to become either more receptive to disease or cause bacteria to become less responsive to antibiotics, he says.
“Glyphosate and other herbicides constitute some of the largest releases of synthetically developed chemistry [in the world], so the exposures are broad. We also know that antibiotic resistance is happening way faster than we had hoped or predicted.
“This additional chemical exposure gives us some explanatory power as to why antibiotic resistance is so pervasive and seemingly irreversible, so we think they should be taken account of in risk assessments.”
And of course, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the world’s leading authority and gold standard on carcinogenicity, famously declared glyphosate to be a probable cause of cancer in humans back in 2015.
“Glyphosate and other herbicides constitute some of the largest releases of synthetically developed chemistry, so the exposures are broad.”
JACK HEINEMANN
New Zealand’s “no-science” problem
Bizarrely, instead of relying on the IARC’s findings, the EPA commissioned its own report, by a single author – a toxicologist with no background in epidemiology – which concluded that glyphosate was unlikely to be genotoxic or carcinogenic to humans, and did not require reclassification under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act. This report was roundly criticised in two subsequent papers.
A 2017 paper from the Green Party, authored by Bruning and former MP Steffan Browning, called out the EPA’s decision to ignore IARC’s findings, concluding that the science and opinion that it primarily relied on in its assessment was supplied by industry, and based on unpublished data instead of the independent, peer-reviewed science that informed IARC’s classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen.
Then, in 2018, scientists at the Centre for Public Health Research published a paper asking if the EPA was “lost in the weeds”. One of the authors, Andrea T. Mannetje, had been part of the 17-strong IARC panel in 2015.
This paper, which Bruning describes as the most important paper on glyphosate to have been published in New Zealand, also drew attention to the EPA’s reliance on non-peer-reviewed industry-funded studies, making it impossible to evaluate its validity and conclusions.
Bruning says there is no evidence in the EPA’s archives that it has ever done a risk assessment of glyphosate. Nor has its subcommittee ever met since the IARC findings to decide if there was new evidence of toxicity that would require a formal risk assessment under the HSNO Act. “This is part of New Zealand’s ‘no science’ problem. There is no scientist in New Zealand that is paid to research pesticides and pesticide risk.” The EPA’s call for information was essentially “dithering”, when it ought to be conducting a thorough risk assessment, Bruning says.
“The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has drawn attention to how bad our science and monitoring system is. It’s deplorable. Science is now captured within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.”
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, in a recent report, questioned the adequacy of the information on which we base important environmental decisions. He recommends, among other things, that the Ministry for the Environment develop regulations to require and empower the EPA to collate, collect and report on the quantity and use of chemicals in New Zealand. With this information, we could do quality environmental monitoring.
Upton concludes that our regulatory system does not always ask the questions that need to be asked, and that “it needs a basis for providing better scrutiny of the chemicals New Zealand uses a lot of and which have the potential to cause harm”.
Sign our petition
Support the Soil & Health Association in their campaign to restrict the use of GBHs. Read more below.
Since July 2020, the Soil & Health Association (publisher of Organic NZ) has been campaigning the government to restrict the use of GBHs in the following ways:
Banning the use of glyphosate in public places and around waterways.
Banning foliar sprays (pre-harvest) of glyphosate formulations on human and animal feed crops.
Conducting a first-ever risk assessment of the active ingredient glyphosate, and the retail formulation sold in shops, using independent published and openly available scientific data
After the International Agency for Research on Cancer declared glyphosate to be a probable human carcinogen in 2015, many countries have made moves towards an outright ban (there have been delays and pushback in numerous cases, however). These include Bahrain, Malawi, Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Oman, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Bermuda, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy and The Netherlands.
Another 21 countries have restricted the use of glyphosate at the district level or issued statements of intent for a future ban or use reduction.
Non-toxic garden-weed management
Before creating a new garden, kill off any grass or weeds by laying down thick pieces of cardboard or old carpet for a couple of weeks.
Mulching heavily with pea straw, grass clippings, seaweed and bark helps suppress weeds and builds up organic matter in the soil.
Pull them out little and often before they have a chance to go to seed. Focus your efforts on the true baddies, like strangling convolvulus.
Use weeds as a natural mulch by chopping and dropping them. Just remove any seed heads or flowers.
Avoid composting troublesome weeds that might regrow, such as the bulbs of oxalis and onion weed. Instead, rot them down in a sealed bucket of water for six months, then add it to your compost or dilute it with water and apply it as a fertiliser.
Plant densely so your soil is covered and weeds have to compete for their place with the plants you do want.
If you can’t beat ’em, why not eat ’em! (See our story on page 40.)
Some local councils allow you to opt out of weed spraying on your berm. Check out their websites.
Bonnie Flaws is a freelance journalist and writer based in Napier. She grows an organic vegetable garden and shops organic wherever her budget allows.
We produce enough food in New Zealand to feed 40 million people, yet one in five Kiwi kids live in households that experience food insecurity.
Gareth Hughes talks about his new role as lead of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa.
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How do you get a cabbage? My book, A Gentle Radical: The life of Jeanette Fitzsimons, was recently published, and in researching the biography I stumbled upon an unusual speech the late Green Party politician had given at the Fourth New Zealand Energy Conference entitled “Two Ways to Get a Cabbage”. What on earth did cabbages have to do with a late 1970s energy conference? Fortunately, I was able to track down a faded typewriter-written copy of her speech where Jeanette used the vegetable as an example of the very different approaches society takes to provide things like cabbages.
The mainstream approach, even back then, was energy intensive, relying on artificial fertilisers, chemical pesticides, insecticides and fungicides, and complicated fossil fuel-dependent transport and retail chains. The embedded energy and resources that went into growing a commercial cabbage was huge, and if it wasn’t the uniform size, shape or appearance it would be thrown out rather than sold at the market. She contrasted that cabbage with the home-grown organic variety planted and tended with no need for machinery and pesticides, saying “It represents time, effort, caring and an exchange with the earth.” The home-grown cabbage was fresher, tastier and more nutritious but she pointed out that only the commercial cabbage was represented in official economic statistics of progress.
Gareth Hughes and the late Jeanette Fitzsimons, 2018.
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What does our food really cost us?
We’ve never had more volume of food produced globally than now but our connection to that food is at its lowest point in history. Are we looking at the bigger picture when we buy a cabbage or any item in our modern food system? The current paradigm is dominated by corporate giants, global trade networks and is dependent on huge inputs of energy and chemicals. While we might complain about the high cost of food in the supermarket as inflation rates rise, the really staggering cost is being paid by earth systems – soil, water and atmosphere. How we produce food is a major driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. Every year we draw down further on nature’s balance sheet while too often only valuing the financial one.
Across my 20-year career as a progressive campaigner and Member of Parliament, food has remained as a major theme across all my mahi. I’ve led the engagement work for New Zealand’s food rescue sector, been arrested dressed as Ronald McDonald, which triggered the fast-food giant to ditch GE-fed chicken, protested palm oil ships and Fonterra’s gigantic use of coal, passed the Country of Origin of Food Act so Kiwis can know where their food has come from, and for our moana achieved a ban on shark finning and negotiated in government for cameras on fishing boats. Food touches every part of our lives, society and economy – how it’s grown, how it’s sold and who gets it.
I’ve recently started working for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, a global collaboration of organisations, individuals and governments to transform the economic system into one that prioritises shared well-being for people and the planet, as the Aotearoa country lead. A wellbeing economy would deliver purpose, nature, fairness and participation – what would that look like for food in New Zealand?
Right now we have an unhealthy relationship with food. We export a volume of food that’s estimated to feed up to 40 million people yet one in five Kiwi kids live in households that experience food insecurity. There’s real hunger and malnutrition in New Zealand. Despite the cost of food – highlighted recently by the Commerce Commission’s staggering estimate that $1 million dollars a day in excess profit is being taken from consumers by the supermarket duopoly – on average, each New Zealand household throws out an estimated $1520 worth of food every year. Collectively, that’s more than $3 billion worth of good food rotting away and contributing to climate change. Agricultural production is responsible for half of New Zealand’s emissions, and dairy’s impact on our rivers and lakes, and nitrate contamination of water supplies are well-known problems. Every year 192 million tonnes of our most precious resource – soil – washes out to sea as a result of our land-use practices. New Zealand still sprays chemicals banned in Europe and uses destructive bottom-trawling fishing techniques, smashing ancient deep sea coral.
Making progress
Despite the gloom, there are bright spots emerging. We see the growth of food cooperatives and farmers’ markets where consumers can have a closer relationship with producers. The organics sector grew 20 percent between 2017 and 2020. Regenerative farming has become a household name, and more farmers are experimenting with reducing stocking rates and finding that their profits are increasing.
Food-rescue organisations report 30 million meals were provided in the last year, turning an environmental problem into a social solution. Pātaka kai (free pantries) are popping up all over Aotearoa to facilitate sharing food. New products are hitting the market, from pea-protein meat alternatives and bread made from crickets to delicious oat milk brands. Growing numbers of New Zealanders are eating more plant-based meals for health, environmental or ethical reasons, and as a nation dependent on food and fibre exports, international consumers’ desires to purchase food with lower climate and higher animal-welfare standards continue to drive change.
It could be said that today’s problems were once yesterday’s solutions. Around the turn of the millennium, farmers were actively encouraged to convert to dairy and expand into regions totally unsuited to hit exponential growth targets. A focus on volume over value has come with real costs. As we deal with today’s problems – dependence on milk powder exports, environmental degradation, the cost of food, genuine food poverty, and reliance on unethical inputs like palm kernel expeller and phosphate from occupied Western Sahara – we need to ensure we aren’t creating tomorrow’s problems.
What would a fair system look like?
A wellbeing economy of food would look at broader outcomes than just growth rates or profit; it would value wider issues as well – resiliency, sustainability, fairness and access.
One positive example of this happening right now is the fact there is such a thing as a free lunch in New Zealand. Currently 220,000 kids are receiving free lunches in low-decile schools. The primary objective was to make sure children going without were fed, but what schools report are additional benefits for students’ health and food awareness. It’s impacting their attendance, ability to learn and participate in class and is building a sense of school community. It’s a solution-multiplier that was avoided for many years just on the question of cost, and is delivering significant benefits. Ideally we will build on the success and ensure the food used is organic, grown locally and that students can connect with growers.
Another example is Wakatū, a company owned by 4000 Māori families in the Nelson region. Wakatū has a 500-year strategy focused on their tikanga, or values, the taonga that is the land and water, and manaakitanga for the people. Kono, their food branch, is one of the region’s largest employers and exports to more than 80 countries.
Imagine if New Zealand and our food system had a 500-year strategy! We have made a start – factoring in well-being in our national budgets, and now we need to do that in all the decisions government and business make. How we grow a cabbage, produce milk or catch a fish matters more than just the quarterly profit and loss statement.
I believe thinking long term and holistically from a wellbeing perspective would encourage regenerative, restorative agriculture and food sovereignty. Tangata whenua would be able to harvest kai from healthy rivers and seas. We’d see more food forests and community gardens. We would eat food in season and we would know its provenance and how it was produced. Food poverty would be consigned to history and nutritious organic food would be available for all – not just those who can afford it. Let’s move from just counting commercial cabbages to valuing everything that matters.
Gareth Hughes is a former Green Party MP and the country lead for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance: weall.org.
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-08-17 12:34:492022-08-17 12:34:49The wellbeing of food in Aotearoa
An insecticide called chlorpyrifos, banned in the US but still widely used here, is again under the spotlight due to risks of exposure in New Zealand children. An alliance of NGOs made an appeal to government on 5th June (World Environment Day) for regulators to start an urgent reassessment of chlorpyrifos – the next step towards tighter controls. The chemical is currently undergoing a UN process for a global ban because of its environmental and human health impacts.
“Children are particularly at risk from exposure to even tiny amounts of chlorpyrifos, such as residues in food”, said Dr Meriel Watts of Pesticide Action Network.
Dr Chris Hill of the EPA says chlorpyriphos has been identified on the Environmental Protection Authority’s priority chemicals list for reassessment. “Working through our priority chemical list is dependent on our assessment of need and our availability of resource. When considering a potential reassessment, we look at the information available about the substance and about its use in New Zealand. We also consider the technical evaluations of international regulators. If overseas information suggests we act sooner, we will.”
00Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-07-01 14:02:282022-07-01 14:02:28Banned pesticide impacting New Zealand youth
If you’re feeling overwhelmed and bewildered about what constitutes planet-friendly fashion, you’re not alone. Claire Brunette unpicks the multilayered environmental and ethical issues within the fashion industry.
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Clothing is powerful and necessary, and a handwoven burlap sack just doesn’t do it for most people these days. The right clothes can help get you the job you want, keep you safe, change how you see yourself and how others see you; they can be a source of joy.
If clothing production ceased tomorrow, there would be enough clothing in the world to keep us going for a very long time, but we keep producing more than we can use. It’s getting harder and harder to process the wall of information about clothing that is out there. What is actively environmentally harmful? What is exploiting the people making the fabric? What seems sustainable, and says it is, but shimmering below the surface has the nasty tint of greenwashing?
An oft-repeated statement is that the most sustainable piece of clothing is the item you already own, but what if that item is releasing tiny microplastics into the ocean every time you wash it? Microplastics are now found in our kaimoana, our honey, our salt and our blood. A report published by Scion in 2019 showed that 87 per cent of microplastics found on Auckland beaches were likely to be from fabric fibres released during laundering.
So how do we get dressed in the morning in a world that’s tugging us in different directions? Information is empowering, so before you buy anything, especially anything new, let’s explore fabrics. It’s important to note that no fabric is perfect and all have their own unique impact. It is still an essential tenet of sustainability to use what you have and to seek items that are already circulating.
Synthetics
The big bads of fabric. Derived from fossil fuels and irresistibly cheap to make. Polyester, nylon, acrylic and their ilk are to be avoided whenever possible. They continue their dirty work post-production, shedding microplastic fibres into the marine environment every time they are washed. Many vegan alternatives are simply plastic. Companies are rushing to make garments out of recycled polyester, turning plastic bottles into tracksuits, but as these items are still capable of fibre shedding, it’s best to save your recycled polyester purchases for items that don’t need to be washed, such as shoes. See the box on page 64 for ways to reduce the impact of washing synthetics.
Semi-synthetics
Viscose, rayon and bamboo all come under the umbrella of semi-synthetic cellulose. The wood pulp, bamboo or other raw plant material is put through rigorous, chemical-intensive processes to break the fibres down into a product that can be spun and woven into fabric. The resulting fabric is biodegradable, breathable and silky on the skin, making it extremely popular with consumers.
Unfortunately, the environmental and human cost of producing cellulose is high. According to the non-profit environmental organisation Canopy, 3.2 billion trees are cut down every year for cellulose production, up to 30 per cent of which is from ancient and endangered forests. The Changing Markets Foundation released a report in 2017 revealing that viscose factories in Indonesia, China and India were dumping highly toxic wastewater into local waterways, destroying marine life and exposing workers and local populations to harmful chemicals. Awareness around these issues has increased, and manufacturers have been making changes, so when purchasing cellulosic fabrics, look for brand names, such as EcoVero, that encourage responsible, closed-loop production.
Flora Collingwood-Norris is an ethical, low-impact knitwear designer based in Scotland, and a champion of visible mending – a technique where repair work is deliberately made into a feature.
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Soft and smooth, cotton allows air to circulate, keeps you cool in summer and is an ideal inner layer in winter. We love cotton! It also is an incredibly thirsty crop using often inefficient irrigation systems that divert water from natural sources. According to WWF, cotton cultivation severely degrades soil quality, leading to expansion into new areas and the attendant destruction of habitat. Cotton production is heavy on pesticide use, threatening the surrounding ecology of cotton-growing areas and the people that live there. It is hard to forget the dark past of cotton production, and bonded and child slavery are still of concern today.
GMO cotton has long been touted as an alternative and now accounts for close to 100 per cent of cotton grown in Australia. It is designed to increase both insect resistance and herbicide tolerance (so products such as glyphosate can be applied for a longer period of time) while reducing the need for water. An obviously controversial choice.
If you want fresh cotton in your wardrobe, organic is the best choice. Check for labels with GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification. GOTS is a non-profit that prohibits the use of GMO cotton while maintaining high organic, labour and welfare standards.
Most recycled cotton comes from pre-consumer waste, scraps and excess from factories. These are shredded and woven into new fabrics, which often have a pleasing speckled appearance. There are innovations that are creating a pulp out of those scraps by dissolving them with a solvent, so it’s worth looking into how the garment you are buying is recycled, but luckily most producers have this information prominently displayed on their websites.
Linen
Breathable, moth-resistant and durable, linen is grown from flax (Linum usitatissimum – a different species from Phormium tenax, our native harakeke), a resilient, ancient plant that can thrive in poor soils and requires a fraction of the water that cotton does. Organic linen is even better, as nitrates and toxic dyes aren’t used in its production. GOTS certification is also available for linen. Overall, linen is an excellent choice. The con is that all this comes at a premium price.
Wool
Our beloved national fibre is natural, warm and biodegradable. But is it sustainable? There are currently over one billion sheep in the world. That’s far too many to be considered planet conscious, and sheep farming is resource-intensive. According to Circumfauna, who do research on the impact of animal-derived materials, more than 367 times the amount of land is required for wool than for cotton in Australia, and an Australian wool-knit sweater emits about 27 times more greenhouse gas emissions than a cotton-knit sweater. The wool industry comes with a host of issues relevant to those interested in animal welfare. If you are looking for wool, check for accredited or organic wool to mitigate concerns. It may be easier for hand knitters to trace their wool through small suppliers. Recycled wool is often blended with polyester for durability, so beware. There is nothing like the warmth of wool, so consider looking for second-hand items to keep the chill off.
Silk
The fanciest fabric of all, silk biodegrades and keeps rural artisans in business in an almost zero-waste industry. Unfortunately, it’s a fussy fabric to maintain, with the care instructions usually demanding dry cleaning. Its animal welfare credentials are nil, thanks to the traditional step of boiling the silkworms alive to separate the silk from the worm. Sericulture requires very little land use but unfortunately is water-intensive. The dyeing process is where toxic chemicals can shimmy their way into production, so look for naturally dyed items. New alternatives, such as peace silk (where the silkworms aren’t killed), spider silk and silk made from fruit fibre are being developed and offer exciting possibilities for the future.
Second time round
Cost can be a significant barrier to accessing responsibly produced clothes for many. Making beautiful clothes in a way that takes the planet and its people into account is unavoidably expensive. Natural, organic fibres cost more than synthetic, and fair labour costs more than exploitation.
Purchasing second-hand clothing is a lower cost option, but generally requires a larger investment in time. Op shops can sometimes be a challenging place to shop as the racks are becoming increasingly filled with the poorly constructed, synthetic-heavy clothes of recent years. There are a number of people selling second-hand clothing online, curated according to particular needs or aesthetics. However, for some people, the stigma of second-hand clothing is hard to shake. And if you are at either end of the size spectrum, finding quality second-hand clothing can be close to impossible. It’s easy to see the allure of shops that stock your size, in your style, at a price that won’t eat too far into the weekly shop.
Hamilton-based sustainable fashion label KoiNo’s garments are made to order and range from size 8 to size 28.
Slow wins the race
Where the sustainable industry fails, where fashion fails in general, is in providing for a plus-sized market. Amanda Matthews, owner of KoiNo, a Hamilton-based, size-inclusive, sustainable fashion label, agrees that many brands don’t see the value in extending their sizing. “Increasing a size range to include plus size is not always as simple as extending sizing by taking standard sizes and making them bigger. Often new patterns are needed, with adjustments made to make the style fit well on a bigger body.”
To avoid this problem, and its associated costs, Amanda bases her patterns on an XL, grading up or down from there, as she finds this creates a better fit on a wider range of sizes. This isn’t the only clever model that Amanda has adopted. Her garments are made to order, essentially eliminating unsold pieces. “I don’t need to invest in making every size in every style in every colour. I only make what is needed.”
In Aotearoa, we are lucky to have a raft of fashion designers who are eco-conscious and innovative, from I Used To Be, who make frankly adorable bags out of discarded pool toys, to the chic Kowtow, whose clothes read as a love letter to the rain-fed, fair-trade organic cotton they are made from.
Change is coming to fashion. Technology is firmly focused on future solutions. It won’t be long until we are wearing mushroom leather and lab-grown wool. Until then, choose your clothes wisely and love them well.
Claire Brunette is a writer, worrier and textile enthusiast who lives in Tāmaki Makaurau.
https://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/08/Visible-Creative-Mending_samplers_image-credit-RoseJulien-ltd-2048x1365-1.jpg13652048Staff Writerhttps://organicnz.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/OrganicNZ-2024-Masthead.pngStaff Writer2022-06-21 10:50:542024-08-26 12:24:16Fashion: the good, the bad, and the greenwashed
